Last Night's Tipple

Another pour of Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, released every year in honor of the birthday of the creator of Old Forester Bourbon and one of the founders of the Brown-Forman company, George Garvin Brown. I continue to be impressed with its quality, and I think that it's a good value even at the $31 a fifth that it costs. It's interesting, though (and I can't really take any credit for thinking of this -- the point was made originally by someone else), that Birthday Bourbon would have offended Brown's sensibilities. He was all about consistency. The goal was for every bottle of Old Forester to taste like every other bottle of Old Forester. That was the reason that he disliked the Bottled in Bond Act: the act required that bonded Bourbon be distilled at a single distillery in a single season. Brown didn't think that that requirement allowed him enough flexibility in blending to ensure the consistency that he valued so highly. Birthday Bourbons are released yearly in small batches, and the goal of Brown-Forman's master distiller is to make each one different. George Garvin Brown would not have approved, but I do.